The Incredible Leap
by FanWriterWV
Summary: Sam Leaps into one David Banner and his alter ego!


**THE INCREDIBLE LEAP**

_Rage-that was what was coursing through Sam's veins as he came out of the light. It was a feeling of being incredibly alert and yet primal at the same time. Sam was aware of having great physical strength…and then it started to fade. Sam felt like he was shrinking as he sank down to the ground…_

"David? David!" A woman's voice was calling to him through the haze. "Are you all right?"

Sam had a splitting headache. He opened his eyes and saw that he was wearing tattered clothes. He'd apparently been in a fight-but there were no bruises or other marks on his body.

"David, I was so worried-what happened?" A young dark-haired woman helped him up. Sam struggled to get his bearings and saw that he was in an alley.

"Umm, I'm fine…I think." Sam winced. "Where am I?"

"Downtown Seattle," the woman said. Sam blinked and looked up. Sure enough, there was the famous Space Needle rising in the distance. "David, I thought you were going to talk to Mr. Brandon about our rent. When you didn't come back I got worried and went looking for you, even though Dad said not to. I knew something bad was going to happen."

"Yeah, well I guess Mr…Brandon had more to say than I thought, um…" Then Sam saw the woman's waitress uniform and the name on her tag. "Nancy."

"Well, it was still a very brave thing for you to do. Here, I have a cab waiting. Let me help you inside…"

In the back seat of the taxi, Sam tried to remember what had been happening when he Leaped, but all he could see was the rage…and green light. He might have felt invincible before, but now Sam felt like he'd been run over by an eighteen-wheeler. "Oh, boy…" he moaned.

_STALLION'S GATE, NEW MEXICO, 2006_

"Full power, Ziggy! Pour it on! No matter what happens, don't let that thing out!" Al yelled to make himself heard over the roars that were coming from the acceleration chamber.

"The chamber door is holding, Admiral," Ziggy replied with her implacable calm.

"Don't worry, Admiral!" Gushie called back. He turned his head and watched as extra Marines came rushing through the control room. "The door was designed to withstand a nuclear explosion; I don't think that thing can…"

But the words were no sooner out of his mouth when they both heard a terrible wrenching sound and the cries of the Marines as they were tossed back into the control room. A huge shadow loomed over them as the enormous creature they'd first seen in the imaging chamber entered the room. In spite of the fact that he was terrified, Al found himself impressed by the creature's towering strength and size. _They could use him in Iraq, _Al thought.

The creature, for its own part, seemed satisfied with having dispatched the Marines for the moment. It looked warily at its surroundings as the Marines struggled to regroup.

"Everybody, hold your fire!" Al demanded. He looked at the creature. "I don't think it wants to hurt us…unless we provoke it. So lower your weapons!" The Marines reluctantly complied.

"OK, big guy, just take it easy," Al said. The creature growled, but seemed to recognize that Al meant it no harm. It sat down on the floor, seemingly exhausted. Al thought he'd already seen everything, but was in for an even bigger surprise when the creature began to change. Its features became smaller, softer, and more human…and finally turned into those of a rather ordinary-looking, dark-haired man.

"I'll be damned," Al whispered. He motioned to the medical technicians who were normally on standby for incoming Leapees. "Get him into the Waiting Room, and sedated-pronto!" Al looked back at the damaged Imaging Chamber doorway. "Sam, buddy…who the hell did you leap into this time?"

_SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, 1980_

Sam was wearing a fresh change of clothes and washing dishes in the diner where Nancy had taken him. Apparently his name was David Chapman, but from the driver's license he'd found in "His" wallet, it sounded fake. The license itself was only a few months old.

David seemed to be a wanderer, and possibly a fugitive, as Sam found out when a pesky reporter, some guy named Jack McGee, had come by the diner earlier and tried to question Nancy about a fight that had apparently happened at her landlord's office, which was in a newer office building a few blocks away. Nancy had made David hide in the back while she got rid of the reporter.

"I talked Dad into letting you stay for at least another week," Nancy said after he'd help her close the diner for the night. Her name was Nancy Simpson. Her father had owned the diner for the past twenty-five years and was trying to keep from being evicted by their new landlord, the aforementioned Mr. Brandon. "Dad says I'm crazy…but this just proves that we need to keep fighting. If we can make it to the hearing next week, I'm sure Dad can save the diner."

"Well, I hope so. I know this diner must be important to him."

"It's the most important thing in his life-after me, he says." Nancy looked down. "This place is the only thing that's kept him going since Mom died."

"I'm sorry," Sam said. "How did it happen?"

"Cancer. Dad was with her until the end. They bought the diner together, and when she was gone…it was the only real memory he had of her." Then Nancy brightened up. "But that was a few years ago…we have to think of the future now, right?" She hugged Sam. "I'll see you tomorrow morning. Are you sure you'll be all right going back to your apartment alone?"

"Um, yeah, sure," Sam replied. _Once I find out where I live, _he thought. "Tomorrow morning, then."

A quick check of his wallet when he was outside revealed that David was renting a cheap apartment in one of the seedier parts of town. When he got there, Sam found some more of David's personal belongings in a closet-more clothes, a knapsack…and something else he wasn't expecting-a medical journal. Sam found one of the cover stories-an article about a visiting geneticist-circled with a pen. As Sam read the article, he became more curious than ever about whom he had Leaped into.

"Who is this guy, anyway?" Sam asked himself.

"Well, he ain't a dishwasher, that's for sure." Sam turned to find Al looking down at him, but there was something different about Al this time. He looked like he'd just had the biggest scare of his life.

"Al, are you all right?" Sam looked at his friend with concern. "What happened back at the Project?"

"Oh, nothing much. The guy you leaped into just happens to have the mother of all Jekyll and Hyde complexes, that's all." Al mopped his forehead with a handkerchief. "Okay, down to business, right? Right!" Al whipped out the familiar handlink. "You've Leaped into David Banner, who's currently going by the alias of…"

"David Chapman," Sam interjected. He held up David's wallet.

"Oh, yeah. Well, David Banner was a scientist, too, who disappeared back in the late Seventies. He was presumed killed in an explosion in his lab, which was blamed on a creature that was created as the result of too much exposure to Gamma radiation."

"David Banner…" Sam concentrated. "I do remember him. He was famous for his theories about inner strength. I read one of his papers when I was at M.I.T.; he was brilliant. I wondered what had happened to him."

"Well, now you know. He's in the Waiting Room, under sedation, after-well, after what happened when you Leaped into him."

"When I Leaped?" Sam remembered the bright green rage, the primal brute force he'd felt. "Al…what happened when Doctor Banner appeared back there?"

"Uh, let's just say you wouldn't like Banner when he's angry." Al laughed nervously. "But don't worry; he's calm now and told us the whole story. The poor guy's been on the run for the past two years-his time-because of that accident."

"He's trying to find a cure for his mutation." Sam looked at Al. "Am I here to…"

"Find a cure? No such luck, pal. In fact, there's not a whole lot of data on Dr. Banner after 1982. My guess is the poor guy is still out there, searching. But that's not your problem. Your problem is to help Nancy and her father Bill keep the family diner from being taken by a putz named…"

"Mr. Brandon. Yeah, Nancy told me about him. He wants the land for a shopping mall. There's a hearing before a judge next week."

"Not if this Brandon character can help it. Ziggy says the diner will be destroyed in a suspicious fire and Bill and Nancy will be forced out of business."

"Arson?"

"Not that anybody could ever prove. Anyway, it's Bill that gets blamed. He loses everything and becomes a broken man."

"Well, I'll just have to keep that from happening. When is this supposed to happen?"

"Sometime within the next forty-eight hours. So I'll get back to the Project and keep an eye on our guest-and you watch your back, Sam."

_ONE DAY LATER_

Sam was helping Nancy close up again when a car-a Chrysler Imperial-pulled up outside. Two men got out. They were both big, bulky types. Sam had the idea they weren't customers.

"I told you, we're not selling! Now get out of here!" Nancy approached one of the men, who shoved her back.

"Mr. Brandon isn't going to like that," he snarled.

"Leave her alone!" Sam demanded.

The man's partner laughed. "What're you gonna do about it, dishwasher boy?" He was bigger than Sam and easily blocked his path as his partner held Nancy and forced her into the car.

"Mr. Brandon wants to talk to her," the second man said. "We got work to do, so get out of our way."

"I'm not letting you inside," Sam insisted.

The man shrugged. "Have it your way." He punched Sam in the stomach and threw him down on the sidewalk as he kicked the diner's door open.

"No!" Sam saw the man pouring gasoline over the tables and heard Nancy scream as he set them ablaze. "Noooo!"

Something was happening. Sam was starting to feel the rage again; that same primal force he'd felt before. Pure instinct took over as he felt himself expanding, becoming larger…

_FIVE DAYS LATER_

"…And furthermore, it is also the finding of this court that Brandon Investments should make full restitution to all of those whose properties it seized." The judge glowered at Brandon, who sat slumped in his seat, a defeated man now about to go on trial for arson, fraud, attempted murder, and half a dozen other charges.

"We did it!" Nancy embraced Sam as he shook her father's hand.

"No, you did it. I think it would be best if you kept my name out of this when you testify against Brandon at his trial."

"I understand." Mr. Simpson looked at Sam. "Thanks to you, we have our lives back. And so does our neighborhood. I know why you have to move on. I hope you find a cure."

"Well, Sam, you helped a lot of people on this Leap." Al tapped at the keypads on the handlink. "Ziggy says Brandon goes away for a long time and the neighborhood becomes part of a revitalization effort in the Nineties. Nancy has a lot to do with that."

"What about Dr. Banner?" Sam asked. "I still haven't been able to figure out exactly what happened."

"Well, when you Leaped into Banner, you also Leaped into the creature he turns into, so Ziggy thinks you merged with its physical aura, too. At any rate, Banner still stays underground…but you weren't here to help him, Sam."

"But he was here to help them." Sam looked at Nancy and her father as they spoke to reporters. "So maybe I was able to help Banner, after all."

Then he Leaped.

THE END!


End file.
